“Well, whatever it was; and they caught one Smart Alec. She said, ‘Forty days and forty nights,’ and they all laughed--so you could see it was just a catch. As if anybody knew! That was the only fun I could see to the whole performance, and it sounded like Rube fun at that. One odious little creature looked at my dress a long time. Then she said: ‘I’ve got a _new_ dress.’ Another looked at me and sniffed, and sniffed, and sniffed. She wrinkled her nose and lifted her lip every time she sniffed. It was like a kind of signal. Then she said: ‘My papa has got a big store, and we’ve got a horse and buggy.’ She sniffed again and looked just as spiteful! I had to get back at that one. ‘Don’t cry, little one,’ I said. ‘Wait until it’s a pretty day and I’ll come around and take you out in my automobile.’” “But you haven’t any automobile!” “That,” with great emphasis, “doesn’t make any difference. There’s no harm in stringing people of a certain kind.” “Oh, Bonnie May!” cried Baron reproachfully, and with quickly restored calm he added: “Surely one should tell the truth!” “Yes, one should, if two would. But you can’t afford to show your hand to every Bedelia that gets into your troupe. No, you can’t,” she repeated defiantly, reading the pained look in his eyes. Baron knew that he should have expressed his disapproval of such a vagrant philosophy as this; but before he had time to frame a tactful response the child continued: “Then the leading lady turned to me, thinking up another question. I made up my mind to be on hand if I had to sleep in the wings. ‘Why were Adam and Eve driven out of the garden?’ was mine. I said: ‘Because they couldn’t make good!’ She looked puzzled, and I patted her on the knee. ‘You can’t put over anything on me,’ I said. I think I shouted it. That stopped the whole show for a minute, and an old character man up near the stage got up and said: ‘A little less noise, please.’ Then your mother came back.” (Baron had anticipated this detail.) “She had been taking the leading part in a little sketch up in front.” (Teaching her class, Baron reflected, and smiled wryly in spite of himself.) “She had got through with her musical turn, and--well, I don’t want to talk about her. She told me I must sit still and listen to what the others said. Why? I’d like to know. I couldn’t agree with her at all. I told her I was a professional and didn’t expect to pick up anything from a lot of amateurs. And then,” she added dejectedly, “the trouble began.” Baron groaned. He had hoped the worst had been told. What in the world was there to follow? “Your mother,” resumed Bonnie May, “spoke to the woman who had been asking questions. She said--so that the children could hear every word--‘She’s a poor little thing who’s had no bringing up. She’ll have to learn how to behave.’” She hung her head in shame at the recollection of this. For the moment she seemed unwilling to proceed. “And what happened then?” Baron asked persuasively.